For a ghost of a chance
by planet p
Summary: AU; future fic. Claire develops psychic abilities. Claire/Daniel


**For a ghost of a chance** by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own _Supernatural_ or any of its characters.

* * *

She'd never meant to be like this.

To become like this!

She'd never been like this before. Or, if she had, she'd never known about it.

She hated it.

She'd never hated anything as much as she hated being like this. Come on, this was _her_. Her!

Okay, maybe… maybe it was on a par with the demons who'd tried to take away her family and her life, maybe she hated them this much, too.

But nothing else.

She'd never hated her _life_ before!

Now she did.

Simple.

Unmistakable, really.

And all because of this stupid thing that she'd become!

* * *

She'd been so mad at herself and just _everything_ for a long time, even though she'd tried to act like she wasn't because it wasn't fair to allot blame for shit that just _happened_.

But she'd even made up reasons for its happening, too.

Like Castiel. And Castiel. Pretty much, it was all Castiel. He was crappy and now she was just as crappy.

Mad, like her daddy. Even though her daddy wasn't really mad, just possessed. The thought made her want to laugh. _Try saying that one out loud and seeing who believes you're not a pair of basket cases_, she thought sarcastically, with a tinge of savagery.

She liked to think she'd grown up a bit, that she'd learnt to tolerate more effectively. Tolerate where toleration was needed, put the law down when it was all just a load of _bullshit_.

She had Daniel now. She had a friend.

Sometimes, she'd even manage a smile.

* * *

After her father had come home, and they'd had to flee in fear for their lives, she'd never really made solid friends again. She'd tagged along with the other girls, but they were always 'those girls,' not 'my buds.'

She was tagging along with them to the mall Friday after school, kinda hoping she'd miss seeing some post or some door and walk into it to let herself know that she was awake and still alive.

At the food court, they sat down for drinks and she got herself a juice something or other. She didn't go for shakes anymore; she was too old, and she wasn't particularly in the mood to make herself throw up.

She ignored Mrs. Whoever on the left, and the kid standing outside some store across the food court. The lawyer walking past chatting on his cell phone gave her instantly unpleasant vibes and she resisted the urge to gag into her drink.

Her 'friends' would shoot her false _Are you bon, honey?_ looks which she could do without. Frankly, she'd rather choke to death than face suffering through that.

She'd finished her juice drink and was perusing a rack of clothing that claimed to be on sale, when Daniel turned up to say 'hi' and fill her in on some junk, she supposed.

He asked her how she was doing, how her mom was coming along.

She didn't look at him, she didn't even speak to him. She was with her friends, jeez! She thought out her answers to him in her mind, then repeated the process with the right amount of intent. _Yeah, I'm fine. She's fine, too. We're all fine. Dandy, in fact._

Daniel frowned. He'd gotten the sarcasm loud and clear. "Do you want to talk about it?" he asked.

_No, actually, I don't_, she bit back. She didn't apologise. She was pissed off and she wasn't about to apologise for that.

"Another time, perhaps," Daniel replied.

_Fuck you_, she hissed.

He said nothing; took it in stride.

She turned sharply to stare at him. _Did you not hear me first up? Fuck off!_ She didn't wait to see his _Um, I might actually have been hurt by your words_ shit, and spun back to face the rack of clothing.

Her friends hadn't noticed her odd-O behaviour.

She listened to her heart pounding: thud, thud, thud. _Stupid ghosts!_

* * *

It was five days later when he turned up again.

She was at someone's dumb, obnoxiously loud party and was listening into a boring conversation being conducted right next to her by some girls called Kegan, Hannah and Willa.

It was the lamest party, like, _ever_, and her head hurt.

Her mom would think she was having fun; her dad wouldn't give a shit because he was off staving off _the End of the World As We Know It_ and some junk.

She turned down the boy who asked her to dance and headed for the bathroom. Wherever that was.

She really needed to chuck in the towel for shit like this, she decided. She just wasn't made to put up with this crap anymore. Maybe, when she'd been a wee mite. But not now. No way now!

Her head was _killing_ her. She had the absurd notion to call her lawyer – not that she had a lawyer – and explain to him that if she wound up dead the next morning that it'd almost certainly been her head that had done the dirty and committed homicide on her ass.

Which only went to show the fact that she was losing it.

Big time!

She stumbled into the thankfully unoccupied bathroom and splashed water on her face from the 'cold' tap at the bathroom basin.

Her head offered a painful stab.

She wanted to bang it against the mirror. _Stupid head! Stupid crappy head!_

She didn't. She got that she was having a _crazy person_ moment which she was obliged to let pass, or ignore.

Then, for some unfathomably idiotic reason, she started crying. Yeah, just once, she'd have liked to have been like all of the other kids! Just once!

Which was when Daniel turned up. And she turned to glare at him with tear-stained eyes and grabbed the front of his clothes. For a moment, she thought that she was going to cuss him out, but the illusion was pretty much shattered when she found herself kissing him instead.

_Hang on_, she thought, _when did I have anything to drink? I didn't! What the fuck is this?!_

She pushed the thought away and went on kissing him. If he'd expected anything else, he shouldn't have been dumb enough to turn up when he did, she thought.

He went all flailing, _Get off me!_ on her.

She tried to hang onto him.

It eventually caved, and she found herself staring at the ridiculously shocked and hard-done-by look on his face.

"You get that!" she snapped at him hotly. "Don't you _dare_ come barging in on me, laying havoc to my privacy, and expect not to get something in return!"

He shook his head. Who was he to expect something like _that_, for the love of all that was green and lively?

She offered him no reply. She was too mad at him to form words, anyway. What _was_ he? _Thick_? She was _17_! She wanted someone to show her some Goddamn _affection_!

She felt new tears sliding down her face. Stupid, fucking eyes! Going and crying on her!

"No," he said, though she'd hadn't even spoken, "it isn't even about the age thing, or the _What the fuck, Claire!_ thing. For Hell's sake, Claire, I'm not like you! I'm dead!"

She laughed. She really couldn't help it.

Her fingers trembled, in tune with the off-key laughter, like some stupid set of tuning forks. _You're the fucking lucky one!_ she wanted to scream, right to his face.

Her lips wobbled, tears blundered down her cheeks.

Then, she was kissing him again. No! _He_ was kissing _her_!

_Huh_, she thought.

* * *

She left the party late and walked home in the dark with slow, meandering strides that felt heavy to her. She hadn't had anything alcoholic to drink, she was just tired.

She wanted to be home, sleeping already.

She thought about Daniel kissing her, and about kissing him _first_. _How crappy_, she thought,_ for both of us. I'm pathetic, and now I've infected him with it, too._

If he'd been pathetic in life, she wasn't buying into it. He'd been a hunter; that'd had to have taken away some of the wretchedness right there and screamed _You psycho!_ Psychos were never pathetic, they were just fucked and fucked up.

She picked up her pace a bit. If she wanted to get home at all tonight, she'd better make haste of it, she decided.

She tried not to think to hard about Daniel kissing her. She wasn't into Daniel, he was dead; he wasn't into her, she was alive. That kind of stuff just never happened.

It wasn't like _he_ was an angel, she thought. Sometimes, in movies, the angels fell in love with the humans. But it was never the ghost.

Not even in _Ghost_ because, really, Sam had been in love with Molly before he'd died, and Molly had been in love with him.

It just never happened.

She had to stop thinking about it, she decided.

* * *

**GOG! This is so bad! Thanks for reading.**

_GOG – _Gosh, oh gee!


End file.
